Disclosed in JP2003-82927A is an example of a door opening-and-closing apparatus for a vehicle. According to the door opening-and-closing apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in JP2003-82927A, a vehicle door is movably supported at a vehicle body by means of a guide rail, which is fixed at the vehicle body. Furthermore, the door opening-and-closing apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in JP2003-82927A includes a cable, which is selectively reeled in and reeled out by a driving member fixed at the vehicle door. Both end portions of the cable are connected to the vehicle body. More specifically, one end portion of the cable is connected to a front end portion of the guide rail, which is fixed on the vehicle body, and the other end portion of the cable is connected to a rear end portion of the guide rail. Accordingly, the vehicle door is opened and closed when the cable is selectively reeled in or reeled out by the driving member.
Furthermore, according to the door opening-and-closing apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in JP2003-82927A, a pair of pulleys is rotatably provided at the vehicle door in order to guide the cable to be reeled from the vehicle door to the vehicle body. Each of the pulleys includes a rotational axis, so that the rotational axis of one of the pulleys differs from the rotational axis of the other one of the pulleys, and so that the rotational axes extend in a vehicle width direction. Furthermore, the pulleys are arranged so as to be in parallel with each other in a front-rear direction of the vehicle. Accordingly, a projected area of the entire pulleys in the front-rear direction is likely to be increased. In other words, the door opening-and-closing apparatus for the vehicle disclosed in JP2003-82927A requires a relatively large arrangement space. Furthermore, the pulleys need to be connected to the vehicle door so as to be rotatable about the respective rotational axes. Therefore, the pulleys are configured independently of each other so as to have a similar structure with each other (i.e. surrounding structures of the pulleys (e.g. the rotational axes and the like) overlap with each other), which may result in increasing a number of components used for the door opening-and-closing apparatus for the vehicle.
A need thus exists to provide a door opening-and-closing apparatus for a vehicle which is not susceptible to the drawback mentioned above.